


Ways of Ferocity

by Ketlingr



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Imposter, Insanity, Loki Needs a Hug, POV Frigga, Poetic, insane!Loki, villain!Frigga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketlingr/pseuds/Ketlingr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Arrogant. Arrogant and foolish. Little more could be said about the sons of Asgard. Self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-centred men, greedy and hot-tempered. They mistook their childish quarrels for passion, their feral needs for love. The only way to deal with them was patience."</p><p>Frigga is fed up with waiting in Odin's shadow. Her time has come to emerge from the darkness and live up to her true purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ways of Ferocity

Arrogant. Arrogant and foolish. Little more could be said about the sons of Asgard. Self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-centred men, greedy and hot-tempered. They mistook their childish quarrels for passion, their feral needs for love. The only way to deal with them was patience.

Frigga smiled at the Allfather. Patiently. She was used to his regal blindness, his bloated ego overshadowing anything and anyone in his proximity. But she was not hiding in his shadows, she was waiting. Patiently. Because one day she would emerge from the darkness and her true purpose would be recognised.

However, this fool of a man tested her patience whenever he could. It seemed to her that at times he offended her on purpose, just to demonstrate his perceived superiority and to mock her. Frigga was not going to give him the satisfaction of giving in to her hurt pride. However much she felt like spitting bile and venom in his wrinkled old face, she remained calm and unbothered when he approached her, putting the enemy's babe in her arms.

She had raised one son for him, a beautiful boy who already was so much like his father that it hurt. And now Odin brought her this creature, this evil being, as though she was no more than a wet nurse for the offspring of boys impudent enough to call themselves kings. Still she complied, spinning plans in her mind and as fate would have it, the boy, Loki, was going to be a crucial part of them.

He was a troublesome child, so different and too smart for his own good. Frigga watched over him like any mother would have done. Loki lacked his brother's strength, but he soon proved to be apt at magic workings and so Frigga taught him. She earned his trust and got into his heart and his head. Loki was going to play his part just as Frigga would play hers and he would not even realise.

“Mother”, a young Loki would say, his tone complaining, a disapproving frown drawing his eyebrows together. Frigga invited him to sit next to her and open up to her – surely this was about his brother. Thor was the only person Loki ever talked about, because he was the only person willing to surround himself with a boy so different. It seemed Odin's son was the only one who did not sense the aura of danger and alienage that shrouded Loki.

“Why won't Thor ever listen?”, Loki asked, frustrated. “Why won't he understand?”

Frigga drew him close and stroked his dark hair, smiling gently.

“Patience, my love. Most men's minds work slowly and they are difficult to be moved from where they stand. But if you're patient and you know your ways, you will reach them, with time.”

Patience... patience was not always an easy thing to have.

Loki's progress was remarkable and it filled Frigga with pride to have shaped him so gloriously and to have crafted herself a docile expedient from her husband's most horrible insult. However, it was not for centuries that her plan was to reach its first phase of execution. And even then, after all her calculations and her conspiring and plotting, there was still a long way to go and many risks to take.

Thor had always been so predictable and easy to steer, and it had not taken a lot of effort to see him head off to Jotunheim. He was as hot-headed as his father and just as full of himself. And Loki, loyal to his brother, had followed him. Sending Loki home like that did not ensure he would find out about his parentage. Loki had been to Jotunheim before and had returned without a clue, but Frigga took her chances, as she always had, because one day it was bound to happen. Of course, forcing the fight made it a lot more likely that Loki's secret was exposed and it seemed Frigga, for once, was lucky.

Her husband's sleep was only a convenience added to her foster son being struck with horror and self-loathing. Frigga's plans were progressing well. With both Odin and Thor out of the way and Loki weak and needy, there was nothing that could go wrong, she thought.

“I asked him to be honest with you from the beginning”, Frigga lied, her voice soft and full of compassion as she sat by her sleeping husband's side, looking up at Loki. “There should be no secrets in a family.”

“So why have you lied?”, Loki asked, but he was not accusing her. Now that he knew what he was, it did not seem to be difficult for him to imagine why someone would hurt him so.

“He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different”, Frigga replied. As if that was even a reason. As if Loki had never felt different. It was ridiculous. “You are our son, Loki. And we your family. You must know that.” She watched Loki lower his eyes and forced back a smile. It did not matter what he believed. Because soon, very soon he was not even going to remember it.

“You can speak to him”, Frigga whispered. “He can see and hear us, even now.” If only that were true, Frigga thought. Of course, Odin could hear what they said. But his gaze rested on Thor, on his true son. Odin would never know what happened to Loki...

“How long will it last?”, Loki inquired and Frigga told him she did not know. His voice was so cold, so disappointed that it sent chills down her spine. She would ease his pain soon enough.

* * *

White walls. White ceiling. White shoes. It seemed there was nothing between that. Like his eyes deliberately skipped over the faces of the men and women dressed in those white pants, wearing those white gloves. And except for their faces, which showed rarely enough, there was not much else to look at, anyway. Four corners, four walls. White sheets on the bed.

Maybe if he moved he could look past the bars on his windows and see what was outside. But did it even matter? His body would not move, it was as heavy as his thoughts, weighed down by lead, scared into catatonic immobility by bright, white light and bitter, white pills.

They never turned the lights down. He would not let them, because if they did, it was worse. When the darkness came, when there were shadows around, he heard his mind talk back at his thoughts.

_ “Monster.” _

_ “We hate you.” _

“What's your name?”

_ “You're a Monster.” _

**“You're dangerous.”**

_ “They left you.” _

“What is your name?”

**“You don't even remember, do you?”**

_ “They don't remember you, either.” _

_ “They left you here. _

**“Alone.”**

_ “To die.” _

**“You're gonna die.”**

“Sir, do you know where you are?”

_ “You can speak to him.”  _

“No!”

_ “You can speak to him. He can hear us.” _

“No, not her, not her, no!”

The darkness moved. Stepped aside. No, the man did, the man who had brought the shadow, thrown it, you throw a shadow. He had thrown his shadow, right at... at him. Who was he? What  _ was _ his name?

“What is my name?”

“We don't know”, the man with the shadow said. He sounded mildly surprised to find the other one speaking calmly now. “What do you think it is?”

“I don't know.”

But he had a name. He had had a name, but that name was old and it was a lie. Because everything about him was a lie.

_ “They lied to you.” _ Yes, they had.  _ “And now they have left you here. To die.” _

White skin in a white night gown curled up on white sheets in a white room. The monster's eyes seemed empty but inside him was a searing, white hot pain.

* * *

Falling had not been part of the plan. The darkness, the pain, the torture – none of that had been anything Frigga had anticipated. But she could deal with it, she could endure it. Because her goal was worth it and she had been so close. And she was going to be just as close, once she managed to return to Asgard.

Frigga was lucky that nobody paid her enough mind to notice she was gone. The woman walking the golden halls was a mere illusion, a tangible one, a strong one, sustained even through the worst times of torture, but an illusion still. She herself, of course, was also an illusion. Pale skin, jet-black hair and a posture and expression both mad and glorious. It was hard to tell what part of it was acted and what was owed to her current state of mind.

Never had she thought Thor naive enough to fall for her costume. Nobody knew this face as well as Thor, not even Frigga herself, yet Thor was blinded like his father and could not see that he was too quick to stop mourning his brother.

To rid herself of the Other's influence and see the Chitauri defeated, Frigga kept up her appearance as the trickster god. She could see how mischief and chaos had fascinated Loki and she revelled in the power her words held over these gullible, predictable people. Despite the setback that had brought her to this planet in the first place, her plan seemed to be progressing once more and when Thor brought her to answer for her crimes before Odin, Frigga bit back on a triumphant laugh.

Imprisonment did not scare her. Especially not while she had a copy of herself, unnoticed, unsuspected, walking free. Patience, she reminded herself, patience would be the key to her victory. To leave this prison, Frigga needed to wait for the right opportunity – because Odin certainly would not let her out.

Sustaining her illusions barely even took any effort anymore, she had gotten so used to it. She  _ was _ Loki now, because Loki himself was no more. Whatever was left of him was only a mortal shell, a shadow of a man – if he had not taken his life by now. Frigga almost pitied the waste of potential, but she had played the compassionate mother and wife for too long to be able to relate to that kind of emotion without a sense of revulsion.

How ironic was it that the part of her that still embodied the patient wife was the sacrifice that paved the way out of prison for her? Her death, the murder of Frigga, leading her son right into her arms to defy his father. Still so predictable, still a man of Asgard. Frigga's path was clear now and, walking towards her victory next to her unsuspecting son, she was almost jovial.

* * *

“The resemblance is uncanny...”

“It is not resemblance. It is identity”, Thor asserted, taken aback. “But it is impossible...” His brow was furrowed in confusion and he looked pale. Behind him were four men and a woman, all part of his team. They had brought him here soon after Thor had announced that he was going to stay on earth and join them in their fights. Bruce Banner had found the silent patient, whom they were all staring at and who himself was staring at the wall, unmoving.

“How long has he been here?” It was Steve Rogers' voice who broke the silence that had fallen among them.

“We found him wandering the streets a little more than two years ago. He was weak and disoriented – he still does not know his name, nor where he came from.”

“It can't be him, can it?”, Tony asked, frowning. “I mean, we've seen him, we've fought him.”

“Two years ago”, Natasha interjected, “that was when you were in New Mexico, wasn't it?” Thor nodded and everyone turned to look at her.

“An impostor?”, Clint finished her thought.

“Impossible”, Thor said, but he did not sound certain. “There are... not many people who are as adept with magic as Loki was. And the one person I can think of, the one person to know Loki well enough to...”, he paused, shaking his head. “There are not only not many people, there is... only one. And she would never...”

“Maybe he's just a poor guy who looks an awful lot like the guy who tried to take over New York?”, Tony suggested, shrugging. His team politely ignored him.

“Even if he doesn't know who he is, surely there must be people missing him? Doctor Harrows, it's been two years, did you ever... did someone ask for him, did you manage to find out anything about him?”

Harrows pushed his glasses up his nose with his index finger and frowned.

“No-one. Not once. He does have nightmares though and sometimes he... seems to hear voices and speaks to them. He says they call him a 'monster'. Occasionally he seems clear-headed enough to find some kind of coherence within the memories.”

“What does he say?”, Thor asked, not looking away from the patient.

“'They have lied to me. Everything about me is a lie. And they have left me here to die'”, Harrows quoted.

“Sounds like him”, Tony commented, earning himself the one or other exasperated sigh and a sinister glare from Thor. “Why don't you just go talk to him? Maybe he remembers you when he sees you?”, Tony suggested and shrugged, unimpressed.

“Stark, that man is not well. The last thing he needs is having a Norse god walk in on him and scare him”, Steve said, frowning. However, it seemed Doctor Harrows disagreed.

“Maybe”, Harrows argued, “Mister Stark has a point. Sometimes the most unusual things can help patients remember. Even if they have never met each other, I honestly don't think there is a way the patient's state could get any worse.” He sounded both defeated and curious.

* * *

“I know you.”

Thor had barely taken a step into the room, when the words were thrown at him like projectiles.

“Don't come near me.”

Venomous projectiles, fired in desperate defence.

Well, Harrows thought from behind Thor, at least the patient was moving – and quite quickly, too, having jumped off the bed and backed away to the far corner of the room.

“I have not come to do you harm”, Thor said, trying to sound as unintimidating as possible. He approached the scared man until he had walked half-way across the room, then he stopped, raising both his hands in a defensive manner.

The patient had his back to the wall. His posture was almost feral, ready to either attack or run – wherever he would run to, there was really not that much space in this room. His eyes rested on the gigantic man that had invaded his retreat. He knew this man...

“Do you know who I am? Do you recognise me?”, Thor asked and settled to sit on the floor. He sounded sad, concerned.

“I know you”, the patient repeated, wary. Thor nodded.

“I think you do”, he agreed. They looked at each other for a long time.

“What is my name? Who am I?”

Thor resisted the urge to look at Harrows for help. What was he supposed to say?

_ The truth _ , Thor thought.

“Your name is Loki. You are my brother.” And his voice was honest, without a trace of doubt. This was Loki. But more importantly, this man was his brother, who Thor had believed to be lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, feedback is much appreciated.  
> Any tags or warnings can be added if needed.


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